Poet, editor

Sapphire Chips

Sophia Sapphire: knows lots, tells some

When Sophia Sapphire appeared to me, quite a few years ago, dressed in blue, lapis scarab on a silver chain around her throat, I thought she might be a wonderful armchair detective. People would come to her with problems, or with mysteries, and she would solve them, using tarot cards, or her pendulum, or a crystal ball. But if a solution is so quick, there is no story!

Still, Sophia Sapphire has stayed with me, letting me touch the hem of her wisdom. If she wants to speak, this blog is a place for her. Since I am sharing the space with her, I don't promise the blog will always be wise! You'll just have to guess which one of us is which!

Kim's paintings came true in another world. They had made the jump from paintings set in her life, in Blue Roof Farm, among dalmations and the view of her front lawn with its bird feeders and the pond and, in summer, red canoe, to the spacious white galleries of the Agnes Etherington. They were more authoritative in the Agnes; they shimmered more. They spoke to one another.

They looked as if they had been born to be on museum walls, both the hill series and the factory series. "The age of the factory is over," Kim said. "This is the age of technology." She also said that she prepared each canvas carefully and painted the landscape as it would have been without the factory, then painted the factory on top of the landscape. The landscape is the setting for the factory and gives it a serenity it might not otherwise have.